The Battle of the Water Futures
Dennis Zanutto, Christos Michalopoulos, Lydia Tsiami, Andr\'e Artelt, Jasmin Brandt, Demetrios Eliades, Stelios Vrachimis, Stefano Alvisi, Valentina Marsili, Filippo Mazzoni, Panagiotis Smartzis, Barbara Hammer, Phoebe Koundouri, Marios Polycarpou, Dragan Savi\'c

TL;DR
The paper introduces a new water distribution system design competition emphasizing staged planning, deep uncertainties, and AI, aiming to advance urban water system resilience and policymaking.
Contribution
It presents a novel staged-design challenge incorporating unobservable uncertainties and AI, with an open-source evaluation framework for water system planning.
Findings
First staged-design water challenge with deep uncertainty modeling
Integration of policymaking and AI in water system design
Open-source framework for transparent evaluation
Abstract
The highly anticipated 'Battle of the Water Networks' is back with a new challenge for the water community. This competition will be hosted at the 4th International Joint Conference on Water Distribution Systems Analysis and Computing and Control in the Water Industry (WDSA/CCWI 2026), taking place in Paphos, Cyprus, from May 18-21, 2026. This competition embodies the core mission of Water-Futures and the theme for WDSA/CCWI 2026: "Designing the next generation of urban water (and wastewater) systems." The objective is to design and operate a water distribution system over a long-term horizon under deep uncertainty, with interventions applied in stages. For the first time, this challenge features a staged-design approach, unobservable and unknown uncertainties, and incorporates elements of policymaking and artificial intelligence. The solutions will be assessed using a transparent and…
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Taxonomy
TopicsWater Systems and Optimization · Water management and technologies · Wastewater Treatment and Reuse
